Tidal Waves
by settingthesunrise
Summary: She is the ocean, and I am a rock. I sink like a rock I think like a rock and nothing will ever change me.


Tidal Waves

The ocean is not like a rock. The ocean is not as constant as a rock. The ocean is always changing, always moving. The ocean is unreliable and dangerous. Rocks are good. Rocks hold things down. They are steady. Not a lot of things can change a rock.

My parents were the oceans. They saw too much too young and it made them dangerous. They were crazy and stupid and in love, and something broken can't be fixed by something more broken.

I have always been a rock. I sink like a rock I think like a rock I am a rock. I am my mother's rock. I keep her grounded when she is a tsunami. I am steady like a rock when she is calm. If my father was alive, I'm sure I'd be his rock, too.

Being a rock is nice. I like being the one that helps my mother. Doing things that she can't do is helpful. It feels good to be needed. My mother needs me to be her rock.

Sometimes, though, I just want to be an ocean.

I want to let loose and go crazy. I want to lean on other people for support. I want to be helped. I want to be crazy-selfish-rude-unthinking, beautiful-majestic-powerful. I want to move around and see new things and meet new people and always be moving. I want to be indecisive and impulsive and dangerous. I want to sweep someone into me and drag them away from shore, and I want to wipe away sandcastles. I want to be destructive-temperamental-unpredictable-untrustworthy. Some days, I'm tired of being a rock.

When she comes to town, I can tell she's an ocean from a mile away. She never looks down from the clear blue sky and her hair sticks out like she's crazy. Somebody runs into her and she doesn't even notice when she's knocked down. She laughs and it sounds like rain falling lightly onto the beach. She smiles and it's like the sunset in summer. She talks and I can hear the tidal waves lapping at my ears. She is oceanic.

She knows that I am a rock. When she tries to teach me how to swim (even though no one can teach a rock how to float), she tells me. She says, "You sink like a rock." I don't have the courage to tell her that she swims like the most beautiful fish.

When we meet for the first time, ocean and rock, I know that my rock has already been lost in her depths the minute I look into her eyes. They are the lightest blue I have ever seen, and for the first time as a rock, I am moved by them. She asks me if I can help her find the beach. I am helpful. She is grateful. The ocean was happy that day.

The more I see her, the more I am inclined to become an ocean. I want to leave, to get out of this place that I grew up in. My mother tells me she needs me. She tells me I am her rock, and I am reminded that there are more important things than voices like tidal waves.

My mother has a tsunami that night. I wake up to the sound of breaking glass and screaming wails. She tells me to leave in her fit of rage. She always tells me to leave, and usually I don't. But something tells me that this time is the last time. I abandoned my mother when she needed me the most.

I find her house and I knock on her door. Something is filling up inside of me that makes my heart beat fast and my hands clench together like fists. I am shaking when she opens the door, and I walk inside and promptly punch a hole in her wall.

She doesn't ask me questions. She doesn't tell me how awful I am. She doesn't tell me she needs me. She holds me into her arms until it's tomorrow and tells me that everything will be alright. I stay with her for a while. It feels like I'm rooting her in one place.

After it is a while, I go home. My mother is waiting for me at the kitchen table, and she cries and tells me how sorry she is. I believe her.

She comes to my house the next day and tells me that she's leaving. There's a job for her in the Mockingjay's hometown. She tells me she wants me to come. I want to say yes. I want to tell her I love her. But I am a rock, and I am constant.

I tell her good luck.

She and I spend the day together before her train comes to carry her away from me. She cries, and tells me she loves me. I hold her and tell her it will all be all right.

I can't bring myself to go to the train station with her. Instead, I brush my mother's hair and listen to her mumble about the Hunger Games. When I hear a knock at the door, I feel in my gut that it's important.

"I am a rock," she says when I open the door. "A useless rock. You are everything, Finn. Please, let me stay here with you."

I smile and tell her of course. She comes inside and I tell her I love her. That's what she needed, and it's what I needed. In my mind, I am aware. She is a rock? She is an ocean? I am a rock? I am an ocean?

The ocean is a rock. A rock is an ocean. We are loud and crazy and quiet and thoughtful. We are impulsive and caring and constant and shifting. I am green eyes like tree leaves and she is a voice like tidal waves.

**A/N: Do not own. Review or PM me with whatever. This is my first venture into the Hunger Games fandom, so be genuine or nice or whatever. Actually, I don't care. Nobody reads this shit anyway.**


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